From Stan Lee comes Marvel's complete 1994 animated television series, IRON MAN. Experience every thrilling moment -- from the very first episode to the final climactic battle -- in this 3-disc collector's edition. Witness... more » the action-packed adventure from the very beginning as billionaire inventor Tony Stark dons his invincible suit of iron to battle the villainous Mandarin and the power of his ten deadly rings. With fellow superheroes Nick Fury, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Spider Woman and Hawkeye at his side, Iron Man faces off against a band of evil foes, including Whiplash... and confronts his own demons, as well. Go behind the armor and get to know the man under the powered suit. This complete IRON MAN collection is a must-have for fans of all ages!« less
These animated ones just don't cut the mustard compared to Downey's versions.
Movie Reviews
Another Marvel animated series
Vulture Girl | San Diego, CA USA | 02/11/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Iron Man debuted in 1994 next to the 94 Fantastic Four on the MARVEL action hour on the Fox Kids network. This was a good series but it was short compared to X-Men and Spider-Man which were also on Fox Kids. This was a good series. Iron Man ran for 2 seasons. It featured two different intro themes. The first had a gothic pipe organ theme, the other had the lyrics, "I am Iron Man!".
Iron Man follows the adventures of Iron Man himself and his friends War Machine, Spider-Woman, Century, Hawkeye and The Scarlet Witch fighting The Mandarin and his evil forces and stopping them from taking over the earth. The first season is kind of silly but it gets more darker with the second season.
It's nice to see another one of Marvel's 90s animated series being released along with the final season of X-Men. I just hope we can someday see the 90s Spider-man get a DVD release along with some of Marvel's other animated shows such as Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. I just don't know why Disney has to be too darn slow on releasing such "most-wanted" titles. Heck, they haven't finished releasing Gargoyles and the Tick. So far the only entire Marvel animated series they have released so far is Fantastic Four, the 67 Spider-Man and the X-Men. Let's hope someday they'll release the 94 Spider-Man, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and more. Heck, they even need to release other Fox Kids titles such as Eek the Cat.
Here's the episodes in Iron Man:
Episode #1 - And The Sea Shall Give Up It's Dead
Original Airdate 24th September 1994
The Mandarin turns a group of Russian sailors into an army of radioactive zombies in order to use them to take over the world. Only Iron Man and Forceworks can stop him!
Episode #2 - Rejoice! I Am Ultimo! Thy Deliverer!
Original Airdate - 1st October 1994
Iron Man and Forceworks must defeat the newly awakened Ultimo!
Episode #3 - Data In, Choas Out
Original Airdate 8th October 1994
The Mandarin and Justin Hammer have taken control of Stark satellites, using them to inflict a disaster and leading the public to believe that Stark is to blame. Modok also begins a plan to take control of Jim Rhodes mind in hopes of using him to frame Tony.
Episode #4 - Silence My Companion, Death My Destination
Original Airdate 15th October 1994
Iron Man must help Julia's daughter from escaping a virtual reality arcade, whislt wearing a damaged armour.
Episode #5 - The Grim Reaper Wears A Teflon Coat
Original Airdate 22nd October 1994
The Mandarin steals Stark's new weapon, The Grim Reaper, and Stark stands to lose his credibility unless he manages to find out how he managed to get past his security.
Episode #7 - Enemy Without, Enemy Within
Original Airdate 29t October 1994
When Mandarin places his wife in danger, MODOK seeks Iron Man's aid in saving her. Will he actually betray The Mandarin?
Episode #7 - The Origin Of The Mandarin
Original Airdate 05th November 1994
Spider-Woman, Century and The Scarlet Witch find a black box containing a holographic video of The Mandarin's origin, and The Mandarin finally finds The Hall Of Armour.
Episode #8 - The Defection Of Hawkeye
Original Airdate 12th November 1994
Forceworks begin to lose thier trust after Hawkeye fails to arrive in order to help The Mandarin steal Stark's device. Has Hawkeye turned rouge?
Episode #9 - Iron Man To The Second Power, Part 1 and Part 2
Original Airdate 19th November 1994
In this 2-part episode, Tony Stark's company suffers from financial troubles. With his company facing bankruptcy, Tony Stark must find begin to rebuild his shattering company, as The Mandarin plans a new plan to take over the world. He then creates an evil duplicate of Iron Man to destroy him.
Episode #11 - The Origin Of Iron Man, Part One and Part Two
Original Airdate 3rd December 1994
With his armour badly damaged, Iron Man must wait several hours for it to recharge whilst Fin Fang Foom hunts him down! Activating his memory module, he reminisces over how he became Iron Man! He also must watch out as Fin Fang Foom hunts him down to destroy him.
Episode #13 - The Wedding of Iron Man
Original Airdate 17th December 1994
Iron Man and Spider-Woman tie the knot as The Mandarin discovers Iron Man's secret identity!
Episode #14 - The Beast Within
Original Airdate 23rd September 1995
Tony fakes his death in order to infiltrate one of The Mandarin's schemes as Mandarin and Fin Fang Foom join forces.
Episode #15 - Fire And Rain
Original Airdate 30th September 1995
As blackouts begin affect the city, Iron Man faces a new enemy called Firebrand, who's determined to ruin Stark Enterprises to avenge the death of his Father. Will War Machine overcome his fear of water to help Iron Man?
Episode #16 - Cell Of Iron
Original Airdate 07th October 1995
A.I.M sabotages a ship called The Starwell, and uses it's powers to threaten the Earth into paying thier ransoms. When Iron Man investigates, he finds it's creator and Senturian, it's guardian. Can Iron Man stop A.I.M and save the ship?
Episode #17 - Not Far From The Tree
Original Airdate 14 October 1995
Iron Man finds his Father, Walter Stark held prisoner in A.I.M headquarters. Did SHIELD cover up his supposed death?
Episode #18 - Beauty Knows No Pain
Original Airdate October 21, 1995
Madame Mask kidnaps several Stark Industury employees in order to lure her former boyfriend Tony Stark into getting Iron Man to steal her ancient jewel which will grant her immense power.
Episode #19 - Iron Man On The Inside
Original Airdate November 4th 1995
Iron Man must shrink himself to the size of an atom in order to save Hawkeye as HOMER contracts a virus.
Episode #20 - Distant Boundries
Original Airdate November 11, 1995
When Iron Man assists in the landing of an unidentified, unmanned space ship, he learns that it was sent by the distant planet, Elysian, with a distress message -- pleading for Iron Man's help in their fight against a madman called Dark Aegis. Iron Man feels responsible because he inadvertently set Dark Aegis adrift in space long ago. James Rhodes, who is determined to beat his claustrophobia, dons his War Machine armor and joins Iron Man on the mission. But as the ship is launched, they find a dangerous stowaway, the Titanium Man. In the shipboard battle, Iron Man and War Machine are set adrift, braving the atmosphere of Elysian to land on its surface. They find out they're too late; the planet has been destroyed and the air so toxic they must keep armor on. While War Machine is engaged in battle by Titanium Man (who is in the employ of Dark Aegis), Iron Man confronts Dark Aegis, who has possession of the mightiest of weapons -- the Oracle.
Episode #21 - The Armour Wars, Part One and Part Two
Original Airdate 18th November 1995
After inadvertantly causing an explosion in Russia and injuring thousands, Iron Man learns that his designs have been stolen, and are being used to commit crimes throughout the world. The pressure finally gets to Stark, and he begins a mad rampage, attacking anyone that's using his designs.
Episode #23 - Empowered
Original Airdate 3rd November 1996
MODOK finds one of The Mandarin's rings and is terrified to learn that he is still alive and searching for his remaining rings.
Episode #24 - Hulkbuster
Original Airdate February 10, 1996
The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man are transported through various time periods as Iron Man tries to save Julia from being stuck in the past.
Episode #25 - The Hands Of The Mandarin, Part One and Two
Original Airdate February 17, 1996
In this 2-part episode,the Mandarin finally returns and creates an anti-technology field which renders Iron Man's armour useless. Forceworks must reunite to stop Iron Man's greatest enemy from declaring himself ruler. Forceworks must reunite to stop Iron Man's greatest enemy from declaring himself ruler.
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Its only half great.
Ryan Daniels | Planet Namek | 02/01/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This 1st season of Iron Man was so-so. It was really chessy and story and action were really bland. However the second season is a MAJOR improvment and is worth picking up just for that. Its at a reasonable price and by buying it you are supporting the release of other marvel tv shows (Spider-man?) So yeah, its a Good show for its 2nd season so pick it up."
Shamefully bad for its era
Alexander M. Walker | Chicago, IL USA | 05/09/2010
(2 out of 5 stars)
"You can't help but wonder how a Marvel cartoon, starting two years after X-Men: The Animated Series established itself as a programming mainstay, could fail to live up to the same quality standards. It debuted in an age where children had brilliant cartoons like the animated series of X-Men and Batman to occupy their Saturdays. Instead of an equal to the well-told stories of X-Men, Iron Man has all the flair and appeal of the old Transformers cartoon. The plots are hair-brained schemes by villains who cackle and curse their subordinates for plans gone awry. The great comic books aside, looking at the cartoon it's easy to understand how a studio exec might not think Iron Man could ever fly as a franchise. Iron Man just can't stand up to its peers, and from the looks of it, it never even tried.
After Robert Downey Jr. made Tony Stark a household name, this following summary just seems unnecessary, but here goes:
Tony Stark, a brilliant industrialist, has a secret. When he isn't running his highly successful and lucrative technology company he's moonlighting as the formidable defender of the world known as Iron Man. His greatest foe? The ring-clad sorcerer known as the Mandarin, his brain-tank known as M.O.D.O.K., and his gallery of complementary rogues like Blizzard, Dreadknight, Grey Gargoyle, Whirlwind, and Blacklash (aka Whiplash, for all intents and purposes). Even outside of his suit, Stark has a rival: Justin Hammer (to be portrayed by Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2). Hammer and Mandarin work in cahoots almost 100% of the time, making it almost inconceivable that the rival industrialist isn't just arrested on the spot, especially since Mandarin leaves him holding the bag whenever a plan goes south.
To the show's credit, it maintains the animation style that made the majority of the X-Men episodes so enjoyable. It looks like a comic book bought to life (no, not like the Watchmen motion comic), and that alone makes the cartoon somewhat enjoyable. This facet, however, is almost entirely drowned out by two factors: the god awful writing (yes, even by cartoon standards) and the embarrassing computer animation sequence that kicks in whenever Stark puts on the suit in a climactic moment. It may sound like we're ragging on dated animation - but this goes beyond that. Not only is the color so faded and poor, but it's the same sequence every time. Not only did they willfully overlook the shoddy animation of those computer graphics, but they then placed it in almost every episode.
But it's the writing that really makes you groan. Let's hearken back to the old Transformers cartoons when Megatron would devise some silly plan to fill energy cubes (from a volcano, nuclear powerplant, etc.), one of the Autobots would stumble across the plan and go screaming back to Optimus Prime, tell of what he saw, and then they'd go and brawl. Well, replace Megatron with Mandarin (M.O.D.O.K. stands in for Starscream); replace Optimus Prime with Tony Stark, and put his entourage of Jimmy Rhodes, Hawkeye, Spider Woman, and the Scarlet Witch in for the Autobots. It's genuinely the same formula - and there's no excuse for that. If X-Men and Batman can challenge young viewers with more complex plots then why couldn't Iron Man? In place of any well conceived plot they use made up scientific names that are utterly meaningless and do little more than eat up time in the expositional dialogue used to complicate what is otherwise a really simple setup: Mandarin stole some piece of technology (from Stark, an alien, or the Pentagon) and now we need to get it back.
DVD Bonus Features
There aren't any extras, not even a Stan Lee retrospective on the cartoon. The man loves being in front of the camera, he would have loved to help with something like that. It's a subpar cartoon given no help by its poor DVD presentation. How unfortunate.
Read more: [...]
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Iron Man gets animated -- and so does Bill Clinton...?
Gregory Ehrbar | Orlando, FL | 05/11/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The second time Marvel's Iron Man was adapted for a TV cartoon (the first being the kind of cheesy 1966 version), was in this two-season syndicated series that premiered in 1994 as part of The Marvel Action Hour. Stan Lee appeared onscreen as host, and though these intros are not included on the new DVD, Iron Man: The Complete Animated Series, the end credits mention it.
This is actually, in effect, two series with the same actor, Robert Hays, as the voice of Iron Man. The first season was produced by Rainbow Animation with scripts largely by Ron Friedman. The animation is a sort of lower budget ThunderCats, with recycled action and somewhat limited scope. The stories are a bit overloaded with characters so numerous they weigh down the chance to develop them.
There are also plenty of pop culture references (David Letterman?) and Bill Clinton himself is depicted rather than a generic President (voiced by none other than Jim Cummings, the voice of Tigger, Pooh, Darkwing Duck and many more including Ray, the beloved firefly in The Princess and the Frog). This set of episodes also allows you to see the origins of Iron Man and his arch nemesis, Mandarin and his henchman, MODOK (also Cummings).
Once you hit episode 14, there is a distinct difference in style and a totally different theme song. This season was produced by Koko Animation and written by such comic book veterans as Len Wein. The animation is more elaborate but what is particularly noticeable is the dialogue. While there is a lot of action, an effort seems to have been made to flesh out the personalities, conflicts and, most of all the inner turmoils that are the Marvel trademark.
The cast, by and large, provides outstanding performances of what could potentially be campy. Robert Hays is given the opportunity as the voice of Iron Man to deliver more depth and complexity than many of his best-known characters in TV shows like Angie and the movie Airplane!
Most of the voices were recast in the two series. James Rhodes (aka War Machine) is played by James Avery in season 1 and by Dorian Harewood in season 2. Ed Gilbert (Baloo in Disney's TaleSpin) as Mandarin is recast with Robert Ito (Quincy).
In season 2, when the Incredible Hulk appears in an episode, Ron Perlman (of the Bill Bixby live action series), voices the Hulk and Dr. Banner. Also this season, Wanda/Spider Woman is voiced by Jennifer Hale, who is the current voice of Disney's Cinderella.
The episodes look and sound great on the three discs. It would be nice if there was a printed episode guide in the package. I know budgets are an issue, but surely one panel of the enclosed Blu-Ray flyer could be used. That way, it's less likely to be tossed away!"
Worth picking up for the second season
Rich L | New York, NY | 05/07/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Released just in time for a certain movie, the Iron Man Animated Complete Series collects the two season series that ran 1994-1996 as part of the Marvel Action Hour (alongside the Fantastic Four - The Complete Animated Series) - but the two seasons are so different that it may as well be two different shows.
In the first season, Iron Man - accompanied by War Machine and a barely-developed Force Works team (consisting of Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and the Century) battles the Mandarin and his minions (which include M.O.D.O.K. occasionally disguised in a baby carriage) in pretty much self contained episodes. The animation and simplicity of the stories could have been made ten years earlier and are about on a par with He-Man.
In fact the first season could almost be recycled He-Man scripts with the names changed; they're really that simplistic and dated.
Marvel Entertainment must have realized that they were on to a loser, because in the second season everything changes.
The animation improves, most of Force Works leaves, storylines are sometimes stretched out over multiple episodes, stories are cribbed from the comics (such as the Iron Man: The Dragon Seed Saga storyline), the Mandarin's presence is dramatically reduced, Iron Man gets new armor, Tony Stark gets a mullet and the show gets a snazzy new title sequence.
It feels like a completely different show - and one that can stand next to the Spider-Man, X-Men and Hulk cartoons of the day (and when do we get the Spidey and Hulk series on DVD?). For these episodes alone, the boxset is worth a look.
Plus, you get Fin Fang Foom. Can't go wrong with that."